I could have cut that a little closer." Be Confident - Or At Least Act Like You Are Just stay relaxed, smile, and say, "Well, nobody had to run for cover with a turn that wide. Just relax, recover, and even talk to the examiner about it.įor instance, if you try to get rolling from a stop and realize you're in too high of a gear, simply relax, push in the clutch, put it in the proper gear, get rollin', and say "We're a little too heavy to start out in that gear." No big deal.Īnother example would be making a turn too wide. Feel free to ask a few questions before you get started. Talk a little bit to the CDL Examiner like you would with one of your friends - just casual and relaxed. And I'm dead serious about this - no matter how nervous you are, pretend you're relaxed and confident. No matter how good your driving skills, you're a serious danger to everyone if you can't perform under pressure.Įven though you're obviously going to be very nervous about the road test, it's critically important to maintain your composure and at least be able to act as if you're calm and confident. If a person cracks under pressure, it's best to find out sooner than later. These exams are meant to be a pressure cooker. Will you freeze up when someone is critiquing your driving? Will you panic if you miss a shift? Will your eyes lock on the road straight ahead instead of scanning your mirrors when you're feeling the pressure? They want to see if you can handle the pressure. It feels like your life, your career, your everything depends upon whether or not you can pass this exam and get your CDL. Taking the CDL road test will be the most pressure you've been under so far in a tractor trailer. But, equally as devastating is the inability to maintain your composure under pressure. We all understand the consequences of even one brief moment of inattention. You're in heavy traffic, terrible weather, and surrounded by minivans full of children in an 80,000 pound rig on a regular basis. Trucking is a very high-pressure occupation. Non-Driving Considerationsīelieve it or not, one of the main factors that could push the examiner one way or the other at the end of the exam is something completely outside the realm of physically driving the truck - your demeanor. A bit wide is no big deal.Īs long as you're not creating any serious concerns about safety, the little mistakes like missed shifts and swinging a bit wide are no big deal. A few inches too tight and you hit the curb and fail. When in doubt, swing a little wider than necessary. However, if you don't seem to be able to judge turns well at all and you're swinging waaaaay too wide all the time, they're going to consider failing you so you can get more work in. Running over a curb could do serious damage, but swinging a bit too wide usually does nothing but create a bigger safety margin. No big deal.Īnother acceptable mistake is taking a turn too wide. Just keep your composure, take your time, and find a gear. As long as you seem somewhat proficient at shifting, a few ground gears or missed shifts will not fail you. It's not normally a serious safety hazard to grind a gear or need a second try to find the right RPM to get it into gear. Even after 15 years of driving I would still miss shifts sometimes. Hey, we're all human, ya know? We all make mistakes. So any serious safety violations will often times be an automatic failure. They're safety-related items that a driver must always be aware of and execute properly every time. These type of mistakes are often considered automatic failures because they're mistakes that have potentially serious consequences and you simply can't let them happen no matter how little driving experience you have. Smaller things like hitting a curb, forgetting your turn signal, rolling backward before taking off from a stop, or not checking your mirrors properly before changing lanes. Some are obvious, like - don't get in a wreck or run a red light. There are several things which may be considered an automatic failure on a road test. How good do you have to be? What will he be watching for? What's an automatic failure? Here is some advice to help you see things from the standpoint of the CDL Examiner and get through your road test with flying colors. Will you forget to check your mirrors? Will you bump a curb? Miss a shift? Who knows? But the scariest part may be not knowing exactly what the CDL Examiner is looking for in the first place. You know you have what it takes to pass but you're afraid you'll screw it up. So you're getting ready to take the road test portion of your CDL exam and you're scared to death.
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